Trad Wife Delusions in My Home [View all]

[no_hypocrisy]

My father expected a trad wife in 1952 when he married my mother. It was akin to trying to put a round peg in a square opening. While Dad finished medical school and an internship, Mom had not one, but two degrees (BA and MS).

Mom was not trained to be a housewife and was not comfortable with the stringent 1950's conventional domestic mores. Keep a house clean; prepare the meals; raise the children; be subservient to her husband; try to keep up with the other housewives, etc. Her solution: She needed a partner: a housekeeper was hired. I was raised by a series of housekeepers (like The Help) since birth.

Besides that, Mom could win arguments with Dad. She totally got Betty Friedan's premise of "A Problem Without A Name". In the 60's, Mom wanted to work outside the home and Dad forbid it. Her only "escape" was to accept trustee position on the Board of Education. And he couldn't nix that. Mom eventually rose to be the President.


If Mom were in love with Dad in the early years, it morphed into thinly veiled tolerance, if not hostility. He never let up.